Putting our customers and community in focus

Listening to the feedback of our customers and our local community is far more than just a tick box exercise for us here at Lakeside Village. Here, centre manager Di Mellis takes a look at our recently launched focus group programme.?

It can be easy for a business to turn a blind eye to feedback. Some even avoid asking questions for fear of what they’ll hear back in return. But listening and taking on board the honest opinions of customers, employees and other stakeholders really does have a critical role to play in ensuring the ongoing success and sustainability of any organisation.

That’s why we’ve launched a focus groups initiative - to get to know our core audience groups even better and to hear what they truly have to say about what we do and how we do it.

Gathering feedback

We launched our focus groups programme earlier this year, with the first round of sessions taking place between February and June focusing on the following stakeholder groups:

·????????Our customers

·????????Our staff

·????????People with additional accessibility needs

·????????Lapsed customers or people who have never visited the centre

These groups give us the chance to dig deeper into the specific wants and needs of people across a broad spectrum of audiences and allow us to give individuals the time and space to share their feedback and thoughts alongside others with similar experiences.?

Each group met with a third-party facilitator who hosted the sessions at the centre, but away from any members of our management team to avoid influencing the feedback.

The groups were asked a series of questions and also encouraged to share any additional thoughts or suggestions they have for us. Their feedback was all noted and then passed on anonymously to me and my team for review.

Listen and evolve

It’s been such an interesting exercise reviewing the feedback that was provided across each of our stakeholder groups.

We have met as a team to go through every comment and suggestion that was made, from parking to play areas, to feedback on our stores, the brands we stock, and ways we can further improve accessibility across the site.

And now, it’s time to act upon that feedback, responding to the points raised in the coming days, weeks and months.

But – we won’t stop listening either. People’s wants and needs are continually evolving and so will we.

We’re already getting plans in place for our next focus group sessions later this year and we’d love for you to be involved. Email [email protected] if you’d like to take part.???